


Lyric

by MnM_ov_doom



Category: Darkest Dungeon
Genre: Baldwin worries, I hope I rated it right, M/M, character study-ish?, the Jester is reasonable
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:29:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28312389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MnM_ov_doom/pseuds/MnM_ov_doom
Summary: He cannot explain how it started. If he thinks of it, he might say he was drawn to the one beautiful thing in that dreadful place: music. Even when Stan purposefully goes off tune, it still sounds beautiful to Baldwin’s ears.Maybe because it reminds him of home, of his past glory – he, too, had enjoyed playing the lute, had made a few compositions, but had been especially keen on making rhymes. Or maybe because it fills him with a selfish, perverse kind of hope about how beauty can be found even in the darkest, most disfigured places.
Relationships: (Reymas if you squint), Jester/Leper (Darkest Dungeon)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 20





	Lyric

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Carpe Natem (Demeanor)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Demeanor/gifts).



> It's shitmas time and I'm here to GIVE NICE STUFF TO MY FRIENDS.  
> It was so much fun to try my hand at these two! I hope you enjoy this tiny offering!
> 
> (as for you, random reader, I hope you too enjoy this little fic)

Baldwin is afraid.

There is his condition. Paracelsus claims she can keep the others safe, but the forced isolation, the abandonment, the mistrust… it is all embedded too deep in his mind. It is instinctive to withdraw at the first approach.

There is also… upbringing. Not that Baldwin was a particularly haughty king, plus his condition is humbling as that. Who is he to claim to be better than the common folk and demand to stay _segregated_ from them? But his upbringing means rank… and rank is hard to quit. Rank gives him a sense of belonging, a direction to go. Unfortunately, he cannot yet untangle rank from… what it had meant, in a past life.

As such, when the fondness and the interest start to grow, Baldwin tries to trample it all. But he no longer has a warhorse.

He cannot explain how it started. If he thinks of it, he might say he was drawn to the one beautiful thing in that dreadful place: music. Even when Stan purposefully goes off tune, it still sounds beautiful to Baldwin’s ears.

Maybe because it reminds him of home, of his past glory – he, too, had enjoyed playing the lute, had made a few compositions, but had been especially keen on making rhymes. Or maybe because it fills him with a selfish, perverse kind of hope about how beauty can be found even in the darkest, most disfigured places.

It did not take long for his attraction to broaden to the jester, the culprit behind scornful rhymes that wrestled tired smiles on hopeless faces and heroic hymns that inspired courageous attacks.

At first, Stan was wary of him, of course. Baldwin understood, for he knew what jesters went through at courts. For his own selfish safety, Baldwin decided not to push it – with luck, any of them would die in the next expedition. Such did not happen.

Baldwin had enjoyed making rhymes, once. He did not lose the habit the day he lost everything else, and though he kept his mind for himself, he should have known that just because the tavern had the less mediocre lighting in the whole Hamlet, it did not mean it was the best place to write. Not with adventurers occasionally peeking over his shoulder, breathing his air, standing too close for their own safety (not to doubt Paracelsus’ expertise, but there must be a logical reason for people with his condition to be _pushed away_ ).

Stan, too, had eventually read over Baldwin’s shoulder (as Stan later confessed, surprised to see such a _noble_ figure scribbling in profane language). Had dared him to battle of wits, and while Baldwin’s sword is broken (and so should he be), Baldwin’s tongue is sharp for when the situation calls it.

It lacked the glory of chansons and the nostalgy of courtly love, but the crudeness Stan dictated into it and that Baldwin clung to suited the Hamlet perfectly.

Somehow, it is now something they do often. And so is Stan’s company as he gives music, thus life, to Baldwin’s finer compositions. There is something intimate about allowing another to read his soul, his thoughts, his dreams, his longings, his nightmares, his hopes. There is something even more intimate about sitting across from Stan and watch his fingers dance over the strings, and listen to his colourful barrages of profanity when something sounds off tune. When Stan first sang a line of Baldwin’s to try and find the proper notes to it, Baldwin knew he had reached the edge of the cliff.

And so he is afraid, and he clings to his condition, and to rank. He tells himself it cannot be, and enumerates to himself a series of logical reasons as to _why_ : he is a leper, and though everyone _(Stan)_ knows and ignores the fact, Baldwin refuses to be thankful for it; he is a soldier, he is a commander, and his mission is to fight, to die, to command and to protect – not to indulge himself.

So, when he walks in the guild to train (like he is supposed to, instead of sitting with ~~his~~ a jester, like a king) and finds the crusader and the highwayman sharing an embrace that clearly goes beyond brotherly, he is confused. Angry, almost, because the crusader is a soldier too, and should remember his rank. Instead of prying, Baldwin pretends he saw nothing.

Except that his traitorous mind refuses to let go of it, creating alternate realities full of alluring possibilities. To exorcise it before it consumes what is left of his flesh, Baldwin writes it in a piece of parchment under the light of a meagre candle, alone in the barracks. He pours his heart and soul and unrequested desires onto the parchment, the material seemingly too high-quality to the base words in the last lines. But once it is written, it only torments him more, and so he takes it to the border of the Weald and allows the wind to snatch it from his hands. It goes exactly to where it belongs, a place too dark to ever be explored.

But Baldwin should have known that petals must fall, baring the gnarled trees that hid behind a pretty mask in spring; and he should have paid closer attention when, on a mission in the Weald, Stan wandered off and returned torn and bloodied, rambling about having found a treasure – being painfully smug about it, actually, and making a vehement point on how he would not share the prize.

Baldwin should have also not agreed to another battle (better, a duel) of wits, but the barracks are empty at that time of the day and though Baldwin is trying not to jump off the cliff, he is also not trying to back away from it. He indulges the jester.

Stan is very much the opposite from Baldwin: lean, light, free, far from atrocious under his mask and one of the sanest creatures in the entire Hamlet because he does not worry over the grander scheme of things, instead living a moment at once.

And Stan plays a song full of the bittersweet nostalgy so proper of courtly love, high and base tangled together in intricate metaphors worthy of being performed before the most powerful rulers.

Baldwin takes a moment to understand who the characters are, which is ironic, because he recognises the words the moment Stan first starts singing. Any other ~~king~~ man would have taken that as a poor joke, as a jab from a lunatic, would have laughed it off and bragged to his peers about the comedic genius of his jester. Except that Baldwin has known Stan for almost one year, and he knows the jester’s mind works in too intricate ways, with far too much perspicacity.

For their sake, Baldwin should command his troops to retreat. The world spins, he is off-balance, and he will plunge down the cliff if he does not do as much as flailing his arms to try and reach something to hold onto.

But it is too late. The last note fades into silence, full of promises, and Stan puts his lute aside, waiting. Baldwin must give him an answer, and the correct one should be the answer none of them wants.

And yet, fear weakens men and brings the mightiest to their knees.

“Where did you find that?” he asks instead. He sits on his cot, devoid of energy to fight after the music has drained it from him. Stan sits on Tardif’s cot, closer to Baldwin’s and empty at that time of the day:

“A present from the lady of the lake,” Stan replies in a playful tone. Yes, he can pretend to be a senseless fool at times – but even then, sometimes there is a hidden meaning behind his words. Stan takes great pleasure with his riddles, and normally Baldwin enjoys translating them. But now Baldwin frowns under his mask – the blasted parchment must have gotten stuck in some branch. Even so, it is oddly relieving it was Stan finding it.

And returning it.

Baldwin is afraid, and though it belittles such a man of his stature, he says so aloud. It is still far braver than cowering away. And Stan is reasonable, he will understand.

Or, perhaps, that place has tainted him with madness too, because in all seriousness Stan moves to sit shoulder to shoulder with Baldwin, too close for comfort and yet immediately making Baldwin long for more (when was the last time…?). He pulls his mask off, revealing a mess of ginger hair, a thin face and a pair of all-seeing green eyes that rove all over Baldwin with an interest Baldwin has not been looked at in… what feels like a lifetime. It stirs things in him, compels him to reason there is nothing to lose, because this is the Hamlet, and all of them are lost already.

A shred of stubborn sense of duty, clinging to rank, compels him to try a different explanation. With shaky hands and numbed fingers he pulls off his own stoic mask, waiting for the interest in Stan’s eyes to falter and die.

But the lovable fool just leans forward to press a chaste, enticing peck over Baldwin’s chapped lips, only to pull away playfully when Baldwin attempts to reply the gesture, diving head-first into the cliff:

“Be calmed. We shall live to suffer another day,” Stan mutters in a gentle tone.


End file.
